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We were somewhere right around the Illinois/Wisconsin border when I turned 35 early this morning. A weird between-states limbo that somehow seemed rather perfect.

After a long week and a miserably migraine-riddled Friday, the clouds finally parted and I began to feel human again somewhere along the impromptu evening road trip…

Piling into the car with three of the best friends a girl ever had will do that for you.

As the iPod struck midnight on a night that included margaritas, monster jams, the “hullo, sis!” flash of Trucker Dan’s four-ways at 140 mph, and an unexpected birthday gift from the fine city of Milwaukee, the four of us rocked out to the only song I wanted to usher me into a new year:

born and raised near south detroit

Laugh if you like; I’m fully aware that this song is pure cheese. But it’s cheese in the best possible way — comfort food in the form of a power ballad. (Surely by now you must know that I appreciate comfort food.) And, more than that, it’s home. And it’s the Red Wings and nostalgia and the whirling blur of drunk karaoke and driving with the windows rolled down on a summer night, singing at the top of our lungs.

This song and these friends helped see me through some of the darkest days of my life over the past 12 months. And remembering all of that tonight… Honestly, it took everything I had not to play the damn thing twice.

So consider yourself on notice, 35: If you have any intentions of turning me into a pumpkin, I intend to fight back with air guitar and rock horns every step of the way.

Don’t stop believing, bitches.

Note: Cirque Management’s mother would tell you that, technically, the official birthday won’t happen until 12:16pm. (This fact would likely be shared right after she told you how her daughter’s giant head caused 36 hours of labor. Oops. Sorry, Mom!)

If Cirque Management has anything to say about it, Journey will be playing an encore this afternoon… and possibly on a jukebox later this evening. You can’t blame a small-town girl for that, right?

1. It contains my birthday. That might not sound like a big deal, but anyone who knows me knows that I. Love. My. Birthday. (Hey, that’s even more fun when you read it a la “There Will Be Blood.” Ha.)

Despite the fact that I’m pretty sure it’s bloody well cursed at this point (maaaaaaybe we’ll save that theory for another night), I remain so enamored with that calendar date that, over time, I’ve come to regard the entire month of March (all 31 days of it) as “my birthday.”

S’true. Ask my friends. They’ll tell you what’s up. This year just happens to be a big one. But moving on…

2. It brings March Madness. Remember how I’m obsessed with birthdays? Yeah, no, March Madness doesn’t get quite that amount of adoration, but I’m still a complete addict. Random? Maybe. I don’t follow college ball during the year, except to root for Bradley or MSU. But something about those brackets makes me go crazy. I think it’s the fact that I love to say “Gonzaga.”

3. It comes at a time when I need a challenge. This year, anyway. Let’s be honest: I’ve been hot & cold with this blog for months on end now (seriously, if you could see the “drafts” folder of half-realized posts… I weep) and I need a push. March 2 reminds me of how frequently I’ve allowed myself to look back instead of forward, and I need a push.

On the blog. In my life. I. Need. A. Push.

Some wise women and I once determined that if you want to get something done, you need to go balls-out. Call it momentum achieved through gimmick. And thus, Snark Raving Mad was born.

Consider this my public expression of a personal challenge — my very own “March Madness.” If you remember the little count-months-on-your-knuckles trick that some of us learned in school — or if you remember reading the first paragraph up top — you know that March has 31 days…

People? I’m gonna blog the equivalent of every single last one of them.

To be clear (*cough*KATIE*cough*), I’m not saying I’ll blog every day. But I’m throwing it down now: 31 blogs in 31 days. Each tagged Snark Raving Mad for easy tracking.

They may be mighty, or they may be ridiculous. Time will tell. Either way, I’m already a day behind.

I’m re-posting this from a few years back, when I kept a blog at MySpace that exactly five people read. It’s three years later, so the birthday being celebrated is n0w 28 and the fiancée is now my sister-in-law, Claire. I’ve also updated the photo (taken this weekend) but the rest of it is almost word-for-word what I’d write today.

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Originally published June 4, 2007

My baby brother is 25 today.

If you hadn’t figured it out, he’s the furred one in the photo above — that’s him making the creepy face, um, pretty much always. Although we’re the two most lookalike of the Barnaby sibs (especially our identical eyes), his commitment to this bonkers facial hair (as well as his aversion to taming the Barnaby eyebrows) at least ensures we don’t completely look like fraternal twins.

Dan and I were staying with my grandparents when he was born, and my grandma came upstairs that morning (at 6, I was SO super cool to be able to sleep upstairs all by myself) to tell me about my new brother. When she said they’d named him ‘Adam,’ I thought that was probably just about the dumbest name I’d ever heard. How ridiculous would that sound on the Christmas cards? “Liz, Tony, Angela, Danny & Adam” ?

Clearly they had lost their minds. How would he ever fit in?

The day they brought him home I wrote in my diary: “Adam came home from the hospital today. He is little.” (My powers of observation were dizzying, truly.) From then on, he’s been my baby brother. . . Even though we fought to the death the entire time we were growing up: I once pushed him off a chair in the middle of our family’s favorite Chinese restaurant because he was being, well, himself at age 6. (I’m pretty sure that’s why they still remember us 20 years later.) And even though we still fight to the death now: Last summer, we didn’t speak for half a day after fighting over a game of Scrabble. (He was mad because I was using all the triple word squares on the board.) All of this is no doubt because we’re so damned similar — stubborn and sarcastic and defensive and ridiculously competitive and attention whores at heart.

When we’d fight, my mother would warn me to watch my back, telling me that someday he’d be bigger and stronger than me. I laughed, of course – it seemed inconceivable he’d ever grow up that much. And yet. . .

Somewhere along the line, he outgrew airplane rides (though never my demand for water piggyback rides in the lake, which always end with my dumb ass getting dunked and coughing up water).

Somewhere along the line, he became 6 feet tall. . . and started shaving. . . and became a writer. . . and went to college. . . and fell in love. . . and (god help us) got engaged.

Somewhere along the line, he grew up. Not enough to stop deliberately showing his asscrack when he leaves a room (that’s crazy talk), but enough to truly impress the hell out of me with his maturity about important shit.

Somewhere along the line, he moved to Maryland with his now-fiancée, whom I love dearly. . . and whom I try not to give too much grief for getting a job way out there.

Somewhere along the line, he became one of the smartest, funniest (if still gassiest) people I’ve ever met.

Somewhere along the line, I got so lucky as to have not just one awesome brother, but two.

Somewhere along the line, “Angela, Dan(ny) & Adam” became the only way it ever could have made sense.

Happy birthday, Oam. I miss the hell out of you — and I’m the one on the right.

SETTING: Baby shower for Holly, the first member of our group of college friends to procreate. The five of us attending range in baby-craving level from “wants a baby yesterday” to “not if you paid me.” A few of us are decidedly fish out of water, especially in the far SW suburbs.

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SCENE I: We take off our coats and have the Safety Pin game explained to us by Grandma-to-Be.

GTB: “…And if anyone says the word baby, you get to steal their pin. The one with the most pins wins a prize. [Turns to Hollie — not to be confused with Holly] Here. Give this one to your friend who’s in the bathroom.” [Moves on to next group]

HOLLIE: [With an evil grin] “I’m not gonna tell Enna the rules.”

MATT: “That’s rude. And kinda bitchy.”

ANG: “It’s a baby shower. Don’t swear!”

MATT: “Give me your pin.”

ANG: “Damn it.”

—–

SCENE II: A game of “Guess the Poop.” Guests are contemplating various candy bars melted into diapers.

ANG: “Hey, hold this one open, will you? I want to compare them.”

LEZ: [Holding one decidedly PB-&-chocolate diaper open] “I think I’m voting for this one [rustles diaper] as the Reese’s EGG and that one [gestures to other diaper] as the Reese’s CUP.”

ANG: [Studying diaper closely] “Yeah… I keep going back and forth between the two.”

LEZ: “This one [rustles diaper again] seems to have more peanut butter.”

ANG: [Gingerly sniffing second diaper] “I hate to be wrong… Even about fake poop.”